Getting Things Done, Quietly : Joanne Kozberg’s low-key efforts help keep financing for the arts alive in California

She sat inconspicuously a wing away from the head table until her turn came to speak.

The setting was an informal lunch for two dozen persons in the private board room at the Los Angeles Music Center where the guest of honor was Richard Luce, the British Minister for the Arts. He had come to learn about the arts in North America.

In her talk, Joanne C. Kozberg, holder of a quartet of powerful posts--including chairman of the California Arts Council--in arenas where arts, politics and competing egos tend to clash, went from one aspect of her life as a volunteer to another. She went from talking about a video for fifth-graders done in conjunction with last spring’s Children’s Festival run by the Music Center’s Blue Ribbon to government financing for the arts.

After she finished, Kozberg, a slim , well-turned out woman of 45 whose accessories always match, was asked by the British minister about California’s $16.7 million arts financing. “But is California bigger than other states? How does it fit in support?”

“About number five,” Kozberg replied, referring to overall dollars.

“Per capita,” inserted Ernest Fleischmann, executive vice president and managing director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, referring to the more accepted measuring stick, “we are number 33, and that’s shameful.” (Both last fiscal year and this one, California ranked about 30th among the 50 states and the District of Columbia according to statistics of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies.)

“We’re 27 million people,” pleaded Kozberg.

That exchange is in keeping with Kozberg’s low-key personality and her reputation as a Republican of moderate stripe. She is neither ranting ideologue nor driving visionary. She is undeniably committed to the arts, but her style is as a facilitator, a coordinator, an ever-so-gentle nudger. And that kind of gentleness has some worrying about how she will carry out her increasingly important arts roles.

“Probably her greatest strength is her greatest weakness,” suggests a major arts activist. “She has a certain kind of moderate status quo (attitude)--get what you can, but don’t push it. You don’t make great vision from that. . . .

“It took some time to like her. She’s from an upper-class background and that brings with it a certain style. When she wasn’t in a position of leadership, she did keep a certain distance. She thought (arts activists) were being loud, shrill and confrontational, that that wasn’t the way to get things done. . . . She’s got an interesting style of leadership--move by consensus and not raise too many alarms.”

Kozberg counters: “It’s a delicate balance when one can step forward and when you need to be a part of a total picture.”

In the arts, Kozberg’s titles alone carry clout.

* Gov. George Deukmejian appointed Kozberg to the California Arts Council in 1986. She was elected chairman in January, and is expected to be reappointed in 1990 and reelected chairman. (Robert Reid, a Deukmejian appointee as well, is the agency’s director.) The California Arts Council is the most powerful arts organization in the state because it sets policy and has final say over the $13.6 million in grants (another $3.1 million goes for administrative costs) to arts organizations and artists this fiscal year. (See story on Page 92) .

* She is president of the Music Center’s elite Blue Ribbon and as such a member of the Music Center’s executive board. Blue Ribbon will contribute about $1.5 million in the Music Center’s $15.3 million fund-raising drive this year. (Among Blue Ribbon’s 34-member board members are Nancy Reagan and Ann (Mrs. Kirk) Douglas).

* Kozberg is a vice chairman of the 10-member Disney Hall Committee, acting as liaison between Los Angeles County and the Music Center on the concert hall to be built on county land on First Street across from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

* And Kozberg is an active participant on the board of the Los Angeles High School for the Arts, chaired by Supervisor Mike Antonovich.

Despite her titles, Kozberg’s name is hardly on everyone’s lips, in arts or politics. As an insider, a person behind the scenes, that seems to be the way she wants it. But her name along with that of husband Roger Kozberg, an insurance executive, is etched on a marble wall at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and their names are on one of those new granite slabs on the Music Center plaza because the Kozbergs, regular contributors for two decades, have upgraded their overall pledge to $100,000.

Public policy roles have enhanced her clout. For four years until mid-1988, Kozberg worked as a part-time paid senior policy consultant for Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.). She reported on such issues as transportation, onshore oil drilling and “the area I was most involved in was entertainment and the arts--tax issues, copyright issues, FCC (Federal Communications Commission) issues--how many TV stations can networks own and operate?” And as a Reagan appointee to the National Highway Safety Advisory Committee in 1982, she acquired Washington connections.

Yet when the P-word came up, Kozberg disclaimed, “I don’t have power first of all; it’s a team here.” She was talking about the Music Center but that attitude could apply to any of her posts.

“A lot of the things I’m doing, it’s not Joanne Kozberg doing them, it’s just Joanne Kozberg representing decisions,” she insisted at her home in Beverly Hills. “I am just one of 11 Arts Council people.

“On the Blue Ribbon, it isn’t Joanne Kozberg,” she continued, her almost-whisperly tone as soothing as the view of her Monet-like garden. “There is tradition here. There is a board that is very actively involved and a membership that gives a lot of time and resources, and I’m just a representative.”

Sen. Wilson says of Kozberg: “She has the ability to make things happen by making suggestions, and then letting people adopt them as their own. . . . She is good at making people move in a direction with seemingly no coercion when, in fact, they have been rather gently nudged along and made to feel it’s really their idea.”

Kozberg tried that gentle approach with Wilson recently over the controversial amendment introduced by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) that would have barred use of federal funds, notably those from the National Endowment for the Arts, for “obscene or indecent materials.” While the Helms Amendment was still on the front burner, Kozberg discussed it with a top staffer of Sen. Wilson, but not with Wilson himself. She said she knew the senator would get her message. The amendment was defeated 62-35 in the U.S. Senate, but Wilson had voted for it. Was Kozberg disappointed in Wilson’s vote? “No, he’s entitled to his opinion,” she answered easily.

In an era of read-my-lips belt-tightening, Kozberg does a certain balancing act in the key area of government funding for the arts. “I’m an advocate for the arts but there are a lot of other things I care about as a citizen--health care issues, transportation. . . .” Although California’s per-capita funding for the arts is average, Kozberg explains that the state is so large that “we have a great many needs--adequate trauma care, mental health facilities. . . .”

Yet her arts philosophy has a firm focus and centers on bringing arts to the masses--whether senior citizen, fifth-graders or “under-served communities.” It also has the faint ring of the grand designs of the late Nelson Rockefeller--to bring, as Kozberg says, “meaningful arts experiences into everyone’s lives . . . the arts liberate the soul.”

She sees the arts as an educational tool, as a boost for tourism, as a catalyst for renewing a city, whether Lincoln Center in New York or the Music Center here. “It’s the arts that could bring whole communities together. It brings the downtown alive beyond 5 o’clock or in a rural experience as we found through the Arts Council, a third of a county will come to an arts performance. The arts bridges people. Too much of our life is cold and hard.”

Until last summer when the Music Center hired a full-time government-relations representative, Kozberg’s arts agenda involved mass transit. “We’re very strong advocates of Metro Rail,” she said. “And we’re also very mindful of light-rail lines and where they will go. You’re going to have a countywide transportation system, and we have to be somehow part of that. Otherwise we are eliminating a lot of people who could be attending performances.”

She worked with Los Angeles County and the downtown business community to get a Metro Rail exit (the first phase of Metro Rail is scheduled to be finished in four years) at Hill and First streets, close to the Music Center. Was Hill Street a major battle?

“It was not a battle,” Kozberg offered. “It was a need to express a viewpoint. In this case we expressed it to the RTD.”

Christopher Stewart, former president of the Central City Assn., said Kozberg was “politically astute” and “helpful in communicating California’s concern to members of the U.S. Senate. We started back about ’81 and continued until we got the (first) funding in ’86. Pete Wilson became a strong, articulate advocate of Metro Rail. Everytime Joanne visited with him, he had another 15 reasons why Congress should support Metro Rail. And Joanne was very instrumental in getting (then GOP Majority Leader) Bob Dole to understand California’s (mass transit) problem,” Stewart noted. “He was out here during the ’88 presidential primary and he mentioned to me that Joanne was a politically potent spokesperson for Metro Rail.”

Asked about Sen. Dole, Kozberg said it was Elizabeth Dole, then Secretary of Transportation, whom she had spoken to, and that Bob Dole probably heard of her advocacy through his wife. She knew Elizabeth Dole on the highway safety committee. Until it was off the drawing boards, Kozberg also helped lobby for a Metro Rail stop at the Hollywood Bowl, though she’s satisfied that Los Angeles is now funding an alternative study to come up with options to link the Bowl through a moving sidewalk or buses, to an eventual stop nearby in Hollywood.

On the California Arts Council, Kozberg worked with deputy director Juan Carrillo on starting a pilot program, now in its second year, for five “multicultural” interns--or as she puts it, “people of color” working as arts administrators. The money came from the council’s multicultural program. In next year’s budget, the council is requesting $100,000 to place interns in arts organizations which in turn would come up with matching private-sector dollars. That could accommodate at least eight interns.

Her goal is “to take individuals from the multicultural community who may be in the arts field or not, and give them an opportunity to intern with a number of different arts organizations,” Kozberg said. “I really think you’ve got to get greater multicultural representation on the staffs of different arts organizations.” The next step, she says, is to get more diverse people on various “boards of directors.”

And so, behind the scenes Kozberg is working with colleagues on the Arts Council and at the Music Center to improve representation of minorities on boards of directors at the arts complex and other major institutions. “The reality is the community is changing, and we’re looking toward the 21st Century. It’s important on so many different levels, and it’s so important for us.”

“Some people may think of her as elitist and just looking out for the larger organizations,” noted Consuelo Santos-Killins, a Democrat who has been on the Arts Council since 1982, “but (Kozberg) really fights for multicultural things, she’s concerned about individual artists, the small groups.”

In another area, it was Kozberg’s idea to make a video last spring explaining the artistic and social context of “Billy the Kid,” in advance of the Joffrey Ballet’s performance during the Children’s Festival. The Blue Ribbon puts on the Children’s Festival each year with a performance by one of the center’s resident artistic companies for 32,000 fifth-graders from five counties.

The 25-minute video featuring actress Debbie Allen and former basketball star Norm Nixon came in particularly handy when, during last spring’s Los Angeles teachers’ strike, 9,000 children were unable to attend the festival. “With ‘Billy the Kid’ (the video) talked about the Westward movement and the creative process. They (children) became acquainted with the character of Billy and the fact that Billy was an outlaw and had a series of moral choices to make. He made the wrong ones and it cost him his life,” Kozberg explained.

The video’s instructional guide also provided a vehicle for a discussion of gangs.

Besides raising $75,000 from Columbia Savings and Loan to film it, Kozberg was busy chasing down small details. Nancy Olson Livingston, a former Blue Ribbon president, recalled that when Kozberg first approached the Joffrey on the video, the company mentioned the half-dozen unions with whom it would have to be cleared. “I remember Joanne saying, ‘Everyone is so busy, it’s so easy for them to say I’ll try, but then the next day they’re onto their next problem.’ Now what she does is very expertly start working with them. Just gently prodding: ‘Perhaps I can write a letter for you? Is there a phone call I can make?’ ”

The source of Kozberg’s energy and her enthusiasm for the arts is quite simple. “I can’t say I have (artistic) talent. That’s why I love to support those who do.”

A cardiologist’s daughter, Kozberg has moved in comfort and the arts all her life. She grew up in Beverly Hills, a block from her home today, in a household that apparently thrived on public issues. “If it wasn’t politics, it was medicine,” Kozberg recalled. “My father (Dr. Eliot Corday) was very involved with lobbying for coronary care units and for medical research in Washington. He later worked with Supervisor (Kenneth) Hahn bringing paramedic units to the county.” One of her baby-sitters, just a few years older than herself, was screenwriter Nora Ephron.

Kozberg attended Berkeley in the 1960s and majored in American History. She also saw some of it being made on campus. It was the time of massive demonstrations by the Free Speech Movement. Although Kozberg was active in traditional student politics, she stayed on the sidelines of the political movement that spilled into Sproul Plaza. “I couldn’t get that passionate about the issues. I could see it, but I could also see the other side.”

After the 1965 Watts riots, Kozberg joined a newly formed arts group called People Inc., which brought first-run movies to Markham Junior High School in Watts. Bruce Corwin, now president of Metropolitan Theatres, got her involved in the project, headed by then-Councilman Tom Bradley. Her life followed an orderly, traditional course: graduation from Berkeley in 1966, and in 1967 she joined Coro, the nonpartisan public affairs training institute--for Kozberg “just about the single largest influence on my thinking.” Coro also provided a core of valuable political contacts. In 1969, she earned a degree in public policy analysis from Occidental College.

A year earlier, she had married Roger Kozberg, eight years her senior, who had grown up in Hancock Park and was involved with the Music Center. “We met on a sailboat,” she said. “He’s just honorable, kind, solid. . . . He’s my rudder. When the boat starts going in different directions, he’s there to help me navigate and keep me grounded.”

They have two children and they continue to share an interest in the arts. Their home has as its centerpiece a grand piano and two paintings by Joan Miro.

Kozberg quit work after marriage. In 1975, she became a part-time fund-raiser for the NAACP. By 1978, she became a director of special events in Pete Wilson’s unsuccessful gubernatorial primary campaign. Meanwhile, she had become close to Andrea Van de Kamp whom she helped place as Coro executive director. After Wilson’s primary defeat, Van de Kamp appointed Kozberg co-director of Coro’s Public Affairs and the Arts program.

Today, Kozberg remains close to candidates from both parties. After Wilson won a second Senate term--he is the odds-on choice to be the GOP gubernatorial nominee in 1990--the Kozbergs vacationed with him and his wife, Gayle, in Acapulco. And when Kozberg became Arts Council chairman, state Attorney Gen. John Van de Kamp, the Democratic gubernatorial front-runner, and wife Andrea hosted a dinner for her at the Beverly Hills Club.

With this year’s arts budget, Kozberg walked a tightrope and showed the value of good connections.

In mid-January, two weeks before she was elected Arts Council chairman, the state appeared to be $1.5 billion in the red and Gov. Deukmejian recommended cutting back the fiscal 1989-90 arts budget from $15.6 million to $12.6 million. Kozberg never directly challenged Deukmejian’s proposed slash, which an agency leader might have done. Instead, she talked about the value of council programs.

Moreover, she faced discontent among Assembly Democrats, particularly Speaker Pro Tem Mike Roos of Los Angeles, over the council’s direction under Bob Reid. The battle had also become personal. Kozberg, a longtime friend of Roos through Coro, maneuvered to put private grievances to rest while pledging reports on specific administrative concerns.

Susan Hoffman, director of the California Confederation of the Arts, said Kozberg’s testimony in May before an assembly subcommittee also helped. “She’s very direct. There had been a question by (Assemblyman) John Burton (D-San Francisco), ‘Why does the San Francisco Symphony need a grant when all it has to do is have Gordon Getty write a large check?’ ”

Kozberg cooly responded. Hoffman said: “She talked about how the Arts Council funds major institutions. She (Kozberg) said that at last 50% (of the money) must go towards the funding of community outreach. She talked about outreach in the development of new audiences.

“Assemblywoman (Maxine) Waters, (D-Los Angeles), then asked, ‘Is it not more legitimate, or more important, for communities to fund their own art, rather than have art imported to their own neighborhoods?’ (Kozberg) said, ‘There needs to be both.’ ”

“I remember she did not get unnerved,” said Waters, subcommittee chairman, “that she was anxious to work things out. She was real cool, really, really cool. She was good.”

With Deukmejian’s surprise announcement in May of a $2.5 billion revenue windfall, Kozberg continued to lobby quietly. “Her main argument continues to be that there’s more to life than just the standard issues that government normally deals with,” noted Sen. William Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights). “And she was saying (to us), ‘Can you put pressure on the governor’s office?’ It’s not a real hard sell, but it’s a firm sell.”

In the end, Deukmejian dropped the cut, and added $1 million to the Arts Council’s budget (That includes nearly $1 million from the National Endowment, distributed to various council programs.) Granted, it’s hard to know for sure how much influence Kozberg had on the final arts’ budget. If that surplus hadn’t been found, things might have been very different. But David Caffrey, the governor’s assistant with whom Kozberg worked, said: “She was very professional. And as you can see from the outcome very effective.”

“The arts did very well,” emphasized Kozberg.

Of course, the arts always surround her. In her sunny den, there’s a Tamayo, an Ethiopian baptismal painting and Eskimo sculpture. Recently she returned from Canada where she bought some more art. “I found out by the way that the word is not Eskimo,” she said. “The preferred term is Inuit. It means native.”